Why Traditional Sales and Marketing Is Less Effective for Manufacturers
A word of caution: in your efforts to steal share from your competitors don’t rush to dust off that traditional sales and marketing playbook.
Things have changed, according to Dr. James Truchard, Co Founder, President and CEO of National Instruments:
“With the explosion of the web, ever-changing search algorithms, community sites, blogs, and social media, there are so many more ways to get information about your company and your products, but getting noticed is harder than ever. It's not about buying space today; it's about earning it. It's not about blasting out your message to hundreds of prospects; it's about getting them to come to you.”
The Way Your Customers Buy Has Changed
For years, manufacturers relied on the familiar sales and marketing playbook and tactics of cold calling, direct mail, advertising, personal networking, travelling, one-to-one sales and industry events and tradeshows.
That approach worked for a long time. It made sense. Those methods helped keep the manufacturer's name top of mind.
In the past, when a buyer was ready to research a purchase, one of the first places they went for more information was to the seller who they remembered.
The seller had the information and the buyer wanted it.
This was an era of “information asymmetry.”
An effective salesperson could leverage the buyer’s hunger for information to guide, influence and, if necessary, strong arm the buyer toward a closed sale.
Think about how we used to buy cars. Once upon a time, if you wanted to know more about the newest features on the latest model, you had to go to the car dealership. Those details were privileged information and the salesperson was the gatekeeper.
Oh sure, you would eventually learn what you wanted to know, but on the salesperson’s terms and on the salesperson’s schedule.
Buyers always hated trading a pound of flesh for information, but they had no choice. They were stuck.
Until two things came along that changed everything.
These two things made life much better for buyers, and much more frustrating for sellers who were unwilling to adapt to the new ways of doing business: the internet and avoidance technology.
The Internet
First, there was the internet.
The internet gave buyers the freedom to start researching their purchases WITHOUT having to endure the annoyance and manipulation of dealing with a salesperson.
Today, your buyers have supercomputers in their pockets that they can use to research your company, your competitors, your prices, technical reviews, what your customers have said about you and so on. They can do this anywhere, at any time.
All without having to talk to your sales team.
It’s happening more often than you may realize.
A groundbreaking study by CEB/Gartner revealed that in a B2B buying situation, the buyer is at least 57% through their purchasing process before they first reach out to a vendor. Other studies have shown that number to be higher. It varies by industry and product. But it’s a big number, and it’s growing.
That means, your potential customers are researching on their own. They are online asking questions and looking for answers.
They are not involving you (or your salespeople) until they are more than halfway to making a buying decision.
Here’s the big question: Where are they getting their information?
From you? Or your competitors?
The buyer-seller dynamic has changed. The seller does not control the information anymore.
This buyer-seller information symmetry represents a seismic power shift.
And what happens when buyers get so much information on their own?
There’s less opportunity for salespeople to bond and build rapport with prospective customers. There’s no sense of reciprocity toward a salesperson who, in the past, would have provided information early (and throughout) the buyer’s journey.
Armed with most of the information they need, buyers are more likely to focus on one thing upon finally contacting the vendor — negotiating the lowest price.
Why do customers delay talking to vendors? In The Challenger Customer: Selling to the Hidden Influencer Who Can Multiply Your Results by Adamson, Dixon, Spenner and Toman, the authors explain why buyers now wait so long to contact the seller — because they can.
Jared Fabac, author of The Industrial (Marketing) Revolution: How Technology Changes Everything for the Industrial Marketer explains how information has transformed marketing:
“Much like the Industrial Revolution forever changed the way manufacturers produced goods, the Internet has completely and irrevocably changed the way we produce something even more important to modern consumers: information.
The web has not altered the marketing landscape simply because we’re all addicted to the buzz and hum of modern technology. Instead, society is becoming increasingly addicted to technology and, thus, the Internet because it is the quickest, most effective, and simplest form of gathering information to make more informed decisions about available products.
All marketing is information — and every development since the Internet came into the marketing vernacular — is another step toward more information, easier and faster. The Internet provides more information about you, your company, your brand, your products, your services, and your success.”
Avoidance Technology: Buyers Can Now Ignore You
The second big development was avoidance technology.
Modern buyers are masters in the art of sales pitch avoidance.
Need proof? Think of yourself.
How quick are you to answer that unknown caller, respond to that unsolicited email or accept a promotional-sounding LinkedIn request?
Do you rush home with excitement to open mail that’s addressed to “Resident”?
God forbid a stranger comes knocking on your front door.
Your buyers are no different. Thanks to marketing interruption avoidance technology (ironically some of it developed by manufacturers), buyers can increasingly avoid unwanted, irrelevant, interruptive sales and marketing messages.
What is interruption avoidance technology? Think about TV remote controls, caller ID, DVRs, satellite radio, ad blocking software, email spam filters and streaming audio and video (e.g. Spotify and Netflix).
Everyone now has the power to ignore, delete and skip marketing and advertising messages.
If your message isn’t relevant, useful or interesting, buyers can make it disappear with the push of a button or filter it out altogether.
Chapter 4 — The New Rules of Sales and Marketing for Manufacturers
- Executive Summary — Are you a manufacturer looking for more qualified leads?
- Chapter 1 — The World Is Flat — Worldwide Manufacturing Trends
- Chapter 2 — How A Manufacturer Can Grow in A Flat Market
- Chapter 3 — Why Traditional Sales and Marketing Is Less Effective for Manufacturers
- Chapter 4 — The New Rules of Sales and Marketing for Manufacturers
- Chapter 5 — How A Manufacturer Can Be Known, Liked, Trusted and Preferred
- Chapter 6 — Manufacturers Have a Product Problem
- Chapter 7 — Manufacturing: Selling Through A Distributor
- Chapter 8 — How Much Should A Manufacturer Invest in Marketing?
- Chapter 9 — Manufacturers: Getting Started with Modern Lead Generation
